thee, but thou must have the stork as well? Oh, to my heart again!'
'It is a pretty piece of yew, and well strung,' said Johnston with a twinkle in his deep-set grey eyes. 'Even an old broken bowman might find the clout with a bow like this.'
'You have done very well,' remarked the Brabanter in a surly voice. 'But it seems to me that you have not yet shown yourself to be a better marksman than I, for I have struck that at which I aimed, and, by the three kings! no man can do more.'
'It would ill beseem me to claim to be a better marksman,' answered Johnston, 'for I have heard great things of your skill. I did but wish to show that the long-bow could do that which an arbalest could not do, for you could not with your moulinet have your string ready to speed another shaft ere the bird drop to the earth.'
'In that you have vantage,' said the crossbowman. 'By Saint James! it is now my turn to show you where my weapon has the better of you. I pray you to draw a flight shaft with all your strength down the valley, that we may see the length of your shoot.'
'That is a very strong prod of yours,' said Johnston, shaking his grizzled head as he glanced at the thick arch and powerful strings of his rival's arbalest. 'I have little doubt that you can overshoot me, and yet I have seen bowmen who could send a cloth-yard arrow further than you could speed a quarrel.'
'So I have heard,' remarked the Brabanter; 'and yet it is a strange thing that these wondrous bowmen are never where I chance to be. Pace out the distances with a wand, at every five-score, and do you, Arnaud, stand at the fifth wand to carry back my bolts to me.'
A line was measured down the valley, and Johnston, drawing an arrow to the very head, sent it whistling over the row of wands.
'Bravely drawn! A rare shoot!' shouted the bystanders. 'It is well up to the fourth mark.'
